The Principle of Fate
by Mistress of the Sand
Summary: On his way to a concert, hauling a truckload of girls, Neji is cut off in an intersection by a certain redhead. YAOI GaaraNeji
1. Chapter 1

A/N: To hell with author's notes.

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**Neji POV**

You know what I hate the most? Out of everything? When stupid people who should know better shatter your solitude. Guess what I was enjoying? Guess what Hanabi was doing?

**3rd POV**

"Neji!" she screamed, banging her fist on the door of his room. "I know you're in there!"

"That doesn't mean I can hear you, though, does it? I could be listening to music. As a matter a fact, I am." he called through the door in a much less frustrated voice than he thought he was capable of right then.

"Neji, open the door, and listen to music later! I got something to tell you." Neji sighed and, resisting the urge to open the door and throw them in her face, let his drum sticks drop from his hands to the floor. He pushed the pause button on his Walkman(1), got up off of the stool in front of his drum set and walked over to the door.

"What do you want, Hanabi?" he said in tired tone.

"Didn't I just say I had to tell you something? Open the goddamn door!"

"Now, now Hanabi," he scolded, reluctantly complying, "I think you'd better watch that mouth of yours. We wouldn't want daddy to hear us, now would we?" She rolled her eyes.

"Fuck you. You're chaperoning me and my friends at the concert downtown." She said, getting straight to the point.

"Really? Hmm, why do I think I'm not?" He said, preparing to shut the door in her face.

"Because you're stupid." She said, holding out her hand and stopping it before he could.

"Hey, I'm not the one who dresses like a whore." He commented.

"These are low riding hip huggers, the thong is supposed to show, duh! Dumbass." she said.

"Hanabi, go away before I make sure your father hears about that filthy mouth of yours." Her eyes narrowed.

"Then I'll tell him you called me a whore." She replied in a very aggravating tone. Neji sighed inwardly, knowing that this was a battle he could not win. Hanabi gleaned from his demeanor that she had won. She flashed him a victorious smile. "Great. We're waiting by the car." She said as she started off down the hall.

"What! Now?"

"Yeah! And hurry up; we're already, like, ten minutes late for this damn thing!" Neji swore loudly, startling one of the maids passing by, who almost dropped the laundry basket she was carrying. She quickly handed it to him and darted off. Neji closed the door and dumped the contents of the basket on the floor. Then he dove for clothes.

He came up about three minutes later, wearing a pair of baggy black cargo pants and a T-shirt that read 'Go Be Stupid Somewhere Else'. He grabbed his CD player and a jacket, then on impulse shoved his drumsticks in his pockets and walked down to where his cousin and her friends were waiting, putting on his jacket and sticking his headphones in his ears on the way.

"Took you long enough." Hanabi said in greeting, peeling her back off of the idling vehicle.

"Hi Neji." Said one of the girls amongst the titters of the rest of Hanabi's posse, looking down at her hands and blushing. Oh god, not another one. Almost all of Hanabi's friends had developed what they called a "crush" on him. He pretended to be oblivious and normally just didn't pay attention to any of them.

But he guessed the way the girl fidgeted reminded him of a younger Hinata, because he forced a smile into his voice and after a moment of racking his brain for a name, said "Hey, Kira-chan. How you doin'?"

"F-fine." She replied faintly as the rest of the girls went into hysterics at him actually speaking and not just nodding or grunting.

"Omygod he actually spoke to you!"

"He called you Kira-chan!"

"He is so hot…"

Neji cast a pained look at Hanabi, who shrugged and rolled her eyes. "C'mon girls, let's get in the truck." She said.

"Wait, Hanabi, we're taking the Hummer?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Does your dad know?" He said skeptically. The H2 was his uncle, Hisashi's car.

"He's out of town. And he doesn't have to know." She said sweetly.

"You know I hate this…thing, and that's why you chose it, right?" Neji asked dryly.

"Just drive Neji."

------IIII

Neji pushed up the sleeves of his jacket to his elbows, displaying his muscled drummer's forearms as he tried fruitlessly to tune out the conversation about him going on in the back seat. It was obvious that Hanabi's friends had no idea that they weren't whispering, because every now and then they would say things related to him that would make a pedophile want to cover his ears. Finally, Hanabi did something.

"Guys!" she whispered fiercely, "that's my cousin you're talking about! Gross! And besides, we can hear you up hear." This shut them up very quickly.

"Are we near Myron Blvd. yet?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"…'Cause that's where we're supposed to-"

"I know where we're going, Hanabi, will you stop nagging me?" said a frustrated Neji to the occupant of the passenger seat.

"I was only trying to help." She huffed, crossing her arms.

"Backseat driving never helps."

"…"

"…"

"Actually, it would be called front seat driving because I'm in the fro-"

"Hanabi! Shut up! If I hit somebody because of you I swear I'll-" but Neji was never able to finish his threat but at that precise moment a motorcycle pulled out in front of them, causing him to have to step abruptly on the brakes. "HEY! WHAT THE FUCK MAN!" Neji yelled, sticking his head out of his open window and glaring. The guy on the motorcycle turned his un-helmeted head, looked at Neji and then flipped him off before speeding off into the night. Neji leaned his head back inside the car.

"Is everybody alright?" he asked, looking at the girls in the backseat. They nodded their shaky affirmation. Neji turned toward Hanabi. "You okay kid?"

"I'm fine. This is Myron. Turn a left here." She said. For once, Neji complied without any hesitation and turned in the same direction the motorcycle had gone.

"Red-headed bastard." He muttered under his breath.

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There.

(1) Walkman equals CD player.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I have no knowledge of anything involving concerts. This is totally made up.

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Gaara had heard somewhere that the telephone was an instrument of the devil, put on earth to interrupt long, hot baths. He ignored it the first fifteen times it rang, but on the sixteenth, he finally got up out of the tub, grabbed a towel and, wrapping it around his waist, answered the phone.

"Satan, why must you do this to me?" he said emotionlessly into the phone.

"GAARA!" he winced and held the phone away from his ear as his best friend/roommate/bandmate, Ai's voice boomed out at him. "Gaara, where the hell are you!" she continued in a somewhat normaler tone.

"Well, I _was_ in the bathtu-"

"Did you not remember that you were supposed to be at the Amphitheatre half an hour ago! Did you not remember that we had a gig tonight! We're on in less than twenty minutes!" Gaara might as well have been hit with a sack of bricks.

"Oh shit." He said, hurriedly trying to dry off with one hand.

"Oh shit is right! Your stuff is already here, I got it up while you where at the Coffee Shop. I've got the Fuck Van, take the bike." She said, using her affectionate nickname for the van they owned, that looked like it would be a rapist's choice of vehicle.

"Have I told you how awesome you are at all today?" Gaara asked thankfully.

"Tell me when you get here." She said before hanging up. Gaara scrambled around their apartment, putting on various articles of clothing while toweling his hair. He emerged from the apartment less than 90 seconds later looking slightly unkempt, but the important thing, he mused, was that he was dressed. Zipping up his leather jacket, he got on the seat of the motorcycle, revved it, and sped away. The wind rushing through his still damp hair alerted him immediately that he had forgotten his helmet. In too much of a hurry to go back, he drove straight ahead.

'Well, let's just pray I don't get hit tonigh-' but Gaara was unable to finish this thought as a Hummer came out of nowhere and almost plowed into him. The driver leaned out of the window and yelled something that Gaara couldn't make out, but he turned around a flipped him off anyway. His brain immediately registered something off about the guy. He turned around again, way too rushed too figure it out at that time.

7 minutes later, he jumped off his motorcycle and ran through the back entrance, thankful that he'd had enough presence of mind in his frenzied state to not forget his pass, because he had no time to try to work things out with security.

"Gaara!" Ai cried out in relief the second she saw him. "Thank God, I was beginning to think you got hit by a truck."

"Hummer." He panted in correction, as she led him towards their dressing room.

"What! Baka!" She said hitting him on the head. "You almost got hit by a Hummer!"

"Vocalist abuse!" he called to no one. The only other person in the room was Sasori, their alternative drummer, and he could care less about them right now. He was in his 'zone'.

"I do it because I care." Ai said grinning. Her smile faded as she noticed the moisture on her hand. She felt Gaara's hair. "Kami, your hair is wet. I swear, if you get stuffed up before we go on I will kill your sorry, late ass-"

"Yeah, yeah I know." He said, chuffing at her empty threat.

"You could show a little more urgency, we only have about 10 minutes."

"Ah, we're fine." He said, grabbing the bag of clothes Ai threw at him. "Wait, what? When you called you said we were on in less than 20!"

"That was to get you to hurry up, and it worked."

"Yeah, and it also almost got me hit me hit by a fucking H2!"

"Ease up, Gaar-Gaar. If you were supposed to have died tonight, you would have."

"That's reassuring." He said, blushing slighty at his nickname. "And don't call me that."

"Call you what?" she said innocently. He mouthed the word 'bitch' at her back as she turned. "I heard that." She said walking towards her guitar. He opened his mouth to protest. "Don't argue." She said before he could. "Get ready already!" she half-yelled, obviously amused by her comment.

Grumbling, Gaara did, and walked over to in front of the mirror. He leaned over to apply his eye liner over the not quite black but still very dark circles that surrounded his eyes. Looking in the mirror, he knew what was weird about the guy that had almost hit him: He had no pupils.

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Review.


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